


Transcendent

by Okadiah



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: contempative, just shiro musing at who he is now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 07:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okadiah/pseuds/Okadiah
Summary: Shiro’s liberation from the mind of the Black Lion back into life leaves him wondering how different he is from the man who'd left Earth as the pilot of the Kerberos mission, and who he is now.





	Transcendent

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this for a while and thought I should get it out here before the seventh season is released. Nothing too angsty, just Shiro thinking about his past and himself, and who/what he is now.
> 
> Enjoy!

Shiro leaned against the warm metal of the Black Lion’s head and stared up at the brilliant moon hovering above him, the only company he had on this quiet night. The others had all turned in after such a long day. They deserved the rest. Hell. _He_ deserved the rest.

But he couldn’t sleep.

Truthfully, he didn’t mind. After … after dying, and then spending so much time in the Black Lion’s consciousness — watching what he could while he could — if anyone should want the peace of sleep, it should be him. But he didn’t. Sure, the soul-crushing fatigue clung to his body like a permanent weight, but where once it had dragged him down, now ….

Now it was almost a relief. A part of him he’d grown used to. A part he didn’t think he’d ever be rid of, no matter how much sleep he achieved. No matter how much rest the others insisted on giving him.

They wouldn’t understand, but that was okay. They didn’t need to.

The moon bathed him in silvery light, light as silver as his hair apparently. All around him, balmy night clung to the lions and the peaceful world they’d landed on, but he felt as if he glowed. The only thing seen in the darkness. A being other. A being different.

He felt different. He felt other. He felt ….

Shiro felt solitary. Apart, and otherworldly.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t feel like himself. That, at least, he was sure of. Well, decently sure of, since his entire existence appeared to be more complicated than quantum mechanics. He’d died, but his consciousness had been saved. He’d been cloned, but now he was in a clone body of himself. What did that make him? Was he still Takashi Shirogane? Did Takashi Shirogane still exist? Could he reliably say that was him at all?

Truth was, he didn’t know. He had his memories. He remembered only a few years ago being so alive and bold and filled with possibility. The Kerberos mission had happened, and _he’d_ been chosen as the pilot. He’d been excited — so excited. He’d never believed that life couldn’t be incredible. That Shiro, Young Shiro, had been so innocent. He’d been pure as snow.

Then his enslavement. His time in the arena. He still didn’t quite remember all of it, his time as Champion Shiro. The gaps in his memory were still there, making the connection to Young Shiro harder to string together. It had to have been then that they’d decided to clone him. Taken him apart so they could rebuild him if they needed him. Had he been a clone then too? When had his forelock turned white? When had he lost his arm?

Shiro let his gaze drop to the gap in his body where his arm should have been, human or Galra tech. He lifted the stump and let the light of the moon shine on it. In a strange way, he had to admit he missed it as much as he was grateful that it was gone. Had it been a part of him? Had it made him Shiro? A small part of the Shiro who’d escaped the arena with Ulaz’s help? Had it made him Shiro, the Black Paladin of Voltron?

Shiro dropped his vacant arm again and returned his gaze to the moon. Shiro, the Black Paladin. Was he even _that_ , anymore?

If he was being completely honest with himself, even with his connection to the Black Lion … he wasn’t so sure. That part of him had been filled with a desperation. A goodness. A light. A drive. He’d been tormented, haunted by everything he’d experienced and done in his time enslaved that he’d become a leader and warrior without thought or question. His path had been defined, even if he’d been a broken version of himself, held together by the mission and his friends.

But then … then he’d _died_ , but it hadn’t been a real death. Saved by the Black Lion, he’d still existed. But there had been no body. There had been no companion. There had been nothing but him and his thoughts as he watched through the Black Lion’s eyes. Saw everything. Saw himself — the clone of himself — and realized how much further he’d fractured. He’d been a ghost, watching an echo parade in his image. Watching the world as it forgot and replaced him.

And as painful as that was, he’d come to terms with it because he _had_ died. There was no getting around that one. No coming back from it, even if he might have been able to contact the others — if only barely. Despite the clone existing in his place, he’d never expected more than what he’d had. A merged existence with the Black Lion, for eternity if that was the case.

But then, impossibly, Allura had pulled him from the Black Lion, and in a sensation unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, he’d opened his eyes and been birthed again. Breathed with a body again. Became embedded in the world once again, tied down by many things, all things, everything. He was alive _again_.

And yet ….

Shiro closed his eyes. The sound of the world around him was gentle and rolling. The smell of the breeze filled him, and the touch of it made him shiver despite the warmth of Black’s metal behind him. The quiet was like a blanket to his nerves. The solitude a relief.

All his life, Shiro had been connected to others. Connected to the world. Connected to the universe. But so much had happened, and although those connections were still there, and he was happy for them, he still felt so … disconnected. He’d gone through so much. Maybe too much.

He’d been selected for a mission of a lifetime, he’d been kidnapped and enslaved and turned into a fighter, a killer, a survivor. He’d escaped and become leader to the greatest force of good in the universe, and he’d fought and defeated Zarkon. He’d been tortured and experimented on. He’d been cloned. He’d been killed. He’d been alone and forgotten.

And then he’d come back. Was back. Here and now.

Shiro sighed and opened his eyes. The moon hung above him, an entity alone in the sky. Solitary and watchful, but out of reach. Distant. Apart and distinct, no matter its relationship to the world it revolved. No matter how much it might love its world. It was … transcendent.

And given the hollow ache of his soul, how burnt out he was in the wake of everything that had happened … how the press of his friends and the thought of the future almost hurt with their bright possibilities, he couldn’t help but wonder at himself. He wasn’t the leader of Voltron, not anymore. And it was possible he never would be again. Not because of his missing arm, but because there wasn’t much left in him. Not right now. At least, not the stuff he needed. There was only so much the spirit could take before it broke. And there was only so much those broken pieces could take before they became something new.

And like it or not, he knew, deep down, that he _was_ something new now. He’d transcended in a way that should never have been possible. And sitting here alone in his solitude, and relieved for it, he wondered who the Shiro he was now, was.

Because he knew he’d never be any of those other Shiro’s again.


End file.
